


In Between Names and the human

by Excavatrice



Category: The Culture - Iain M. Banks
Genre: Fluff, Hair Brushing, Luxury porn, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Other, sentient AI's
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-24
Updated: 2018-04-24
Packaged: 2019-04-27 08:27:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,293
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14421411
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Excavatrice/pseuds/Excavatrice
Summary: The sentient spaceship In Between Names has been hiding for 300 years. After the mistake that made it lose its human crew, it is not worthy to carry humans around anymore.But one day, it must respond to a distress signal.





	In Between Names and the human

Suddenly the interior of the spaceship seemed shabby and gloomy.

_In Between Names_ had left it unchanged since the event that stripped it of its humans. It stretched the reception area another ten meters to make the human walk a little longer before they saw the interior. It browsed fast through its inventory of prefabbed landscapes: Prairie? no, to dull, desert? same. Abstract interior composition? No, it should rather find something soothing and traditional, a coastline, a sandy beach, ornamental cliffs, rolling hills. Most humans preferred environments with lots of coasts, and such landscapes could be varied endlessly. When it knew the human better, it could enhance the landscape with more challenging elements. Coastal line, done! Now some vegetation and fauna. Subtropical flora suite, moderated. Scenting trees, chirping critters. Edible lifeforms with colourfull shells would be exposed in the shallow water at low tide. Not very artistic, but functional. Before the human took their last step into the main area, the spaceship frantically removed all potentially dangerous plants and animals by second thought. The human looked malnourished, maybe they would eat the decorative plants.

_In Between Names_ made a new avatar and did not look into its partitioned memory of how it had destroyed the previous one in a desperate act of almost self-mutilation. It made the new avatar half a meter taller than the human but gave it the same skin color and basic racial features.

”Hello, human, welcome to _In Between Names_! Would you like something to eat?” the avatar said, meeting the human on the other side of the reception area like it had always been there.

The human made a confirmatory gesture and whispered ”yes” in heavy accented Marrain.

”My name is Esperhart and I speak for the LSV _In Between Names_ ,” the avatar said.

The human told its long name, and the avatar didn’t answer: ”I know,” though it could have.

Esperhart led the human to a table fitted with fruits and different dishes. ”Please, serve yourself,” it said.

The human stretched its shaking hand out and choose a bowl, watching Esperharts reaction, worried that the invitation would be retracted.

_In Between Names_ watched the meek human eat a little of the offered food, and was very satisfied that they also swallowed some of the microscopic eavesdropping bugs that would make it easier to monitor the human’s ingestion. It didn’t feel it needed to obtain consent for this, since the human's health was its responsibility as long they choose to be aboard.

”Thank you for saving me,” said the human, its head bowed in the direction of the avatar.

”You are welcome,” Esperhart said. ”Luckily I was near enough when I heard the distress call.” But just near enough. The ship had burned its reserves to get to the human in time. The resources of the little escape pod it had found the human in, had nearly run out when it reached it. And had there been other Minds near enough, _In Between Names_ would not have interfered. It had hidden out here on the Outskirts to avoid being near humans the last 300 years. It felt it had no right to be near them ever again. But now it had this little, worried human safely inside its multilayered confines of fields. It grew a velvet sensorycarpet on all the surfaces it predicted the human would walk on so that it could feel their heartbeat through their foot soles and taste their sweat where ever they went. Just as a precaution. It would transport the human further into the Culture and drop it off at suitable orbital. But carefully, and not to fast. First, it needed to mend the overworked machines. The nearest orbital could be reached in 20 days if the ship hurried. But hurrying when not needed was irresponsible behavior. Also, it didn’t trust that the nearest orbital Hub could accommodate this human’s needs properly. The next one further away was much better. It would be a 60 days trip, decided _In Between Names_.

 

The human wore dirty, rough and worn clothes. Their hair was a mess. Ship let the avatar offer them a bath. While the human bathed, it tried to cleanse their clothes, but the fabric fell apart when the dirt was removed, and _In Between Names_ made new (and softer) copies of the clothes instead. It felt it was more suitable if the human were adorned with silky attires and gemstones, but it was not the right moment to suggest this.

The human tried to do their wet hair after the bath with their fingers but had to give up. Esperhart asked if they wanted it to brush their hair. ”It will not hurt,” it assured the human.

The human hesitated and gave up. Esperhart had the human sit on a pillow. It sat behind them, its long legs bent casually on each side of the human.

The brush did no good. Esperhart made a show of brushing the hair ends very gently, meanwhile the ship lifted the entanglement with a field, zoomed in and unwrapped each straw of hair from the mess with hair-thin field-fingers. It felt like a breeze and took a minute because ship enjoyed the task and did it slowly.

The human was fed, groomed, cared for, protected. They fell asleep, their head rested on the chest of Esperhart, who leaned back in a position that would have been very strenuous for a human, but where no effort at all for the avatar. Esperhart rounded its arm around the human and supported their head with its fingers buried in the soft fluff of clean and done hair.

Something shifted deep inside the Mind of _In Between Names_. The human trusted it. In mumbled and snoored in is sleep. It was a perfect human. The critters stopped chirping and started singing instead in a major key. The light took a warmer tone. _In Between Names_ suspected that there was a core directive in all Minds coding. Something that made them like the company of humans, something inherited from Mind to Mind from the first barely sentient AI, something that couldn’t be edited away without fundamentally changing its Mind-ness. Whatever the reason, it felt so right having a human again. What’s the point of making dramatic mountains when no one climbs it? Whats the point of making the birds sing intricate compositions with no humans to hear them? The ship gave itself access to the compartialised memories of the humans it had lost. It was a wrong decision that led to the loss. It had to acknowledge that. But it had no better information at the time. _In Between Names_ forgave itself.

How the ship would pamper and spoil this human, that it had accidentally saved. Before the 60 days of traveling ends, the human will demand all kinds of things and amusements like it is their right. ”Give me a submarine and a sea with funny creatures to explore, give me sugarfuit, give me yellow and black striped pellet, give me an eight-legged race mount.” And _In Between Names_ will have Esperhart say: ”Yes, yes  & yes!”

And maybe the human would like to stay? If it wants the company more of its species there could be a nice town there a the foot of the hills, with say, 500 houses made of rosa and beige stones? Certainly, a couple of humans could be persuaded to leave the boring neighboring orbital and its stupid Hub.

_In Between Name_ s monitored, watched, smelled, tasted, listened to the sleeping human with the eyes of its avatar and all its other senses. This human added only 74.2 kg of matter to the ship of millions of tonnes. But it changed all of it.


End file.
